Between Science and Theatrics – Are We All Just Taking Things Too Seriously?
A couple of weeks ago, I was bored – dangerously bored. Which is probably why, despite my better judgement, I signed up for a local public ghost hunt at a nearby disused military installation. You know the type: a group of paranormal “experts,” paying punters who’ve maybe seen a few episodes of Barri Ghai or Jason Hawes saving the day, and a bunch of dubious “cutting-edge” ghost hunting equipment (essentially knockoff K-II meters, dowsing rods, and a team member waving an SLS camera about pretending every stick figure anomaly is a ghost child). It’s exactly the sort of thing that sends “serious” paranormal researchers into paroxysms of seething contempt.
Guests wielded their borrowed K-IIs like Egon Spengler’s PKE meter, drifting through the barracks until a group of three stopped near a specific bunk where the LEDs suddenly lit all the way up to red. “Something’s here!” they gasped. Our expert host strode over and exclaimed amazement, further adding to the excitement of the group.
I swept in with my own, better-calibrated and more accurate equipment, and in short order traced the spikes to a hidden Wi-Fi router – and I launched into rational mode pointing out the discovery, expecting curious follow-ups or relieved smiles. Instead, I got blank looks and glazed eyes, as though I was speaking a foreign language. The group turned away from me to congratulate each other on their “find,” as if I had never pointed out the rational cause.
A few days later, I saw social media posts from the hosting events company listing this incident as an example of “amazing evidence” captured on the night – no mention of my detective work.
Now I could be – and for a time I was – indignant that my efforts were being ignored. What was wrong with these people? How can they be so blind to the completely obvious rational explanation?
But then over the days that followed, I took a bit of time to reflect. Had I misread the situation? In my haste to be a “good sceptical investigator,” perhaps I had failed to read the room. It dawned on me that these people weren’t there to troubleshoot or debunk – they were here for a spooky experience on a Friday night, one that had been in danger of being ruined by the pesky sceptic.
The reality of paranormal investigation is that it is deathly boring, and these companies are running a business selling an experience and reliant on repeat custom. They are not selling a serious scientific investigation. Showing the punters the reality of the work – sitting in silence for prolonged periods, logging atmospheric metrics, painstakingly reviewing multi-camera setups and cross-checking all data – will likely put off all but the most hardcore of data nerds (i.e. Yours Truly).
Fans of Project Fear or Help! My House Is Haunted snip out every building creak or mote of dust as “proof,” oblivious to spooky sound-design edits and dramatic camera tricks. They mistake spectacle for science and spread it as gospel. What gets lost at times is that these content creators are out to entertain first and foremost – whether it’s entertaining themselves or their audiences. If audiences believe it when the drama is often completely overblown and obvious, perhaps some of that is on them?
And speaking of performance: flip over to YouTube, and you’ll see debunkers on a quest to save the world from evil charlatans, tearing into every blinking light and jump scare on Elton Castee’s latest video like it’s a submission for peer review. They replay footage in slow motion, zoom in on digital artefacts as signs of manipulation, layer on sarcastic voice-overs, and crow about “exposing” the hosts’ naïveté or deception. Their approach often reminds me of armchair critics at a movie screening – pausing every scene to complain about plot holes while others just want to enjoy the ride.
Staged content doesn’t necessarily deserve our contempt. Theatre has its place in the paranormal world just as experimental rigour does. The trouble only arises when one masquerades as the other. While it is undoubtedly dishonest of the event company to present the EMF spikes in the barracks as genuine paranormal evidence, perhaps some slack can be cut for them – they were running an experience, not an experiment. The paying punters came away thinking they had captured something – why take that away from them?
So here’s the real question: is it even worthwhile to invest time and energy debunking theatrical content? When hosts lean into props for goosebumps, YouTubers lean into drama as proof, and debunkers lean into mockery for online clout, nobody stops to ask, “Hey, isn’t this meant to be fun?” It’s all performative – the hosts do it to thrill guests, the content creators do it for dramatic footage, the viewers for entertainment, the debunkers for righteous indignation.
While the abundance of belief in fake content online might be frustrating to those of us that take paranormal phenomena seriously – I urge you to pause, take a breath and unclench for a minute…
It’s OK.
We forget we were most likely just like them at one point — if it wasn’t a personal experience that set us on this path, perhaps it was a book of ghost stories in our childhood, seeing Sarah Greene and Craig Charles battle poltergeists on Ghostwatch at Halloween in the early nineties, or watching dramatised cinematic retellings of Ed and Lorraine Warren’s adventures.
At some point, though, don’t we tire of trying to convert everyone to our side? The question of paranormal belief or otherwise is a personal journey, and we all have our own epistemic hurdles to overcome. While it might be frustrating as a sceptic to watch people chasing false positives and taking claims at face value, perhaps we see it as our job to educate them, to correct their thinking – but is it always our place to?
The best teachers are good because they show students how to think critically, not what to think. Instead of attacking or ridiculing, equipping those that are interested with the tools and skills to thoroughly explore these mysteries is ultimately far more constructive. And for those that just want a scary story – remember there is nothing wrong with that.
That compulsion to secure universal buy-in often reeks of ego. True humility – and real sceptical curiosity – doesn’t require a crowd of converts. It accepts that people show up for different reasons: the excitement, for data, or simply for a good story. There’s always the chance that these amateurs that don’t know better now, might develop the same curiosity that took hold of us back in the day if we just trust them to explore on their own. Who are we to extinguish that spark?
At the end of the day, when the mission – explicit or otherwise – is to entertain, setting out to pour cold water on people’s fun doesn’t make you a hero. It just makes you an asshole.
The real magic lives in that space between wonder and rigour. We can chase chills and chase data, each on its own terms, without forcing every ghost hunt into a clandestine physics experiment or a flame war in the YouTube comments section. When we stop trying to school each other and start sharing curiosity with kindness, everyone wins.
We’re not arguing that ghosts are real or that all ghost hunts are bunk. We’re reminding ourselves – and each other – that context matters. Entertainment is its own genre, and so is investigation. Neither needs to overshadow the other. By acknowledging this we clear the stage for genuine wonder and genuine inquiry. And maybe that’s the best story we can tell together.